Embodiments of the inventive subject matter generally relate to the field of networks of computing systems and, more particularly, to monitoring and controlling machines in a data center.
Cloud computing is a model of service delivery for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g. networks, network bandwidth, servers, processing, memory, storage, applications, virtual machines, and services). In typical cloud computing systems, one or more large data centers house the machines used to deliver the services provided by the cloud. A typical cloud computing data center may have a machine grid with a large number of blade machines that can be of different brands and types. Further, virtual machines may be configured on the physical machines in the data center. In the virtualized environment, a client typically deals with virtual images and is not concerned with the physical machine where the virtual image is running. However, when a problem or event arises, it can be desirable to determine whether the root cause of the problem is related to the physical machine or the virtual machine image. A problem arises in that it can be very difficult locate the physical machine associated with a virtual machine in a lame scale grid of physical machines in a data center.